


The Last Person to Love Me

by marieadriana



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Science Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 10:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18715648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieadriana/pseuds/marieadriana
Summary: Sometime during day three of his latest engineering binge, Tony realizes something is Not Right with his labmate and science bro, Doctor Bruce Banner.





	The Last Person to Love Me

Sometime during day three of his latest engineering binge, Tony realizes something is Not Right with his labmate and science bro, Doctor Bruce Banner.

Tony’s a genius – usually. Well, okay. Not with the peopley things. Give him an engine, a circuit board, a chunk of code – genius. But people, not so much. 

So really, it isn’t surprising that it takes him fifty plus hours to catch on that something is rotten in Denmark.

Assuming that it’s not an older problem than that.

Bruce has been hunched over his lab bench as much as Tony – which isn’t really usual. Bruce is the one he can count on to remember things like bathroom breaks and mealtimes and sleep and showers. Managing the Hulk means managing Bruce, as he’d told Tony once. 

Granted, Bruce could’ve snuck out when Tony was deep in his project, but he’d asked JARVIS – and Bruce hadn’t gone farther than the restroom in days.

Three days. He’d been in here longer than Tony, and that was an untwinnable occurrence.

Having solved his current dilemma (The answer was blue number eleven, duh) Tony would ordinarily have ditched the lab, eaten half his body weight in greasy cheeseburgers, and crashed into bed. But the anomaly of one Bruce Banner was too alluring to be ignored.

“Brucie…” Tony sang, approaching the rumpled scientist carefully. 

“It can’t be a polymer reaction,” Bruce said in answer to – well, Tony wondered if it was a question he’d asked Bruce earlier, or something the man had been thinking himself. Either way, it didn’t seem to pertain to their current conversation.

Tony raised an eyebrow and walked closer to Bruce, really looking at him. “Bruce?” He was more than rumpled, more than a three day lab binge should account for. And his eyes were red. “Hey.” Tony’s voice dropped, and he reached out to put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “You okay?”

Bruce startled under his touch, automatically shying away before realizing it was Tony. “Sure, yeah, I’m fine.” He pushed his glasses up on his face, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“In a bout of spectacular role reversal, it’s my turn to ask – have you eaten lately?” Genuinely concerned now – because he’d never heard a less sincere ‘fine’ and coming from him that was saying something – Tony tightened the hand on Bruce’s shoulder. 

“Sure.” Tony’s hand on his shoulder was warm, Bruce thought absently. But of course it was warm, it was a hand… a hand attached to a living body, and hell, Bruce couldn’t remember the last time somebody had just reached out to touch him like that… although, thinking about it, that person had probably been Tony.

“I can ask JARVIS,” Tony reminded him gently. “And I’m pretty sure the answer is going to be longer ago than you think.” He tugged at Bruce until the gamma scientist set down what he was working on and turned on his stool to face Tony. “What’s going on, Brucie-bear?”

If it had been in any other tone, Bruce might have been able to resist. But the concern in Tony’s voice rendered his objections null, and Bruce found his shoulders slumping forward. “I just… I got some bad news.”

“Like, you credit rating has dropped bad news or like… go to a funeral bad news?” Tony asked carefully.

“Invited to a wedding bad news.”

Tony winced. “Ah, hell.” His fingers tightened on Bruce’s shoulder again, then he gave up restraint and slid his hand across the back of those broad shoulders until his arm was around them, tugging Bruce into his side. With Bruce seated and him standing, it was remarkably comfortable, and Tony wanted to pull that curly head into his chest and cradle it against the arc reactor and – okay, he fucking wanted, alright? Trying to shove that away, he cleared his throat. “Betty?”

“Yeah.” Bruce might have tried to pull away from Tony, but it felt so damned good. Tears threatened again, and he ruthlessly suppressed them. “I just – I want her to be happy, I do. I really do.” He looked up at Tony, misery in every line of his face. “But she was the last person to love me, and I don’t know – ”

Tony remembered that feeling all too well, as the number of people in the world who genuinely loved him had shrunk over the years. It had never been very high, but he’d watched it dwindle away… stolen from him by time and death and betrayal, and sometimes by his own failings. “You aren’t alone, Bruce,” Tony whispered, pulling him tighter. “You get that, right?”

Bruce huffed out a laugh that was too close to a sob and leaned his head on Tony’s chest, just to the left of the arc reactor. “I haven’t been alone since the accident. The big guy’s always there.”

“You know what I mean.” Tony wrapped his other arm around Bruce too, tucking the curly head under his chin. 

“I don’t think I do,” Bruce murmured. Cautiously, one hand came up to rest on the arc reactor. “What are you doing, Tony?”

Tony froze. He was cuddling Bruce, surely that was obvious? And Bruce wasn’t pushing him away, so – “Oh, God, am I cuddle-raping you? Did I – oh God, I’m sorry.” He tried to pull away, but Bruce stopped him with another sobbing laugh.

“I didn’t say I wanted you to stop. I just don’t know what it means to you.” Bruce returned his hand to the arc reactor – not pressed, just resting there. He drew a small symbol on the fabric with his finger. “Is this something you do with everybody, or…?”

“I thought you knew you were my favorite, Brucie.”

“Am I?” he asked mildly. He rubbed his cheek against the fabric of Tony’s Led Zeppelin shirt.

Tony sighed. “You’re actually going to force me to make with the words about the things, huh?” He ran a hand through Bruce’s hair. “You aren’t alone, and you aren’t… she isn’t…” Tony blew out a breath. “She isn’t the last person to love you.”

Bruce lifted his head and met Tony’s eyes, seeking… something. Then he surged upwards, and caught Tony in a kiss.

It wasn’t the passion-filled, scorching hot kiss that Tony had fantasized about. (Of course he had, Bruce was fucking gorgeous and Tony was so gone on him it wasn’t even funny.) This was… 

… if a newborn kitten nuzzled a day old fawn, it couldn’t be more tender.

When they broke apart, Tony immediately wanted another. More. Always. But… making of the words. Yeah. Bruce seemed to be a fan of those. Tony’d make with a lot of words if it got him more kisses like that.

“I thought you and Pepper…” Bruce whispered. It felt like raising his voice would break the spell – somehow.

“Not in months. We… we fake it for the press, usually. Except she’s… dating again,” Tony answered haltingly. It was a challenge to string words together when Bruce was looking at him like that – with warmth in those chocolate brown eyes and did Tony really just think that, something so cliche as warm eyes and since when did he use food to describe eyes and –

The second kiss was different than the first, but Tony would never be able to quantify if one was better than the other. 

Bruce rose from the seat without breaking the kiss, and snaked his arms around Tony’s waist. “Is this—” he said when they broke apart. “Is this just – feel better, have a cookie?”

“Not for me.” Tony’s face was open, no masks now – no pretense. “But it can be if… if you need it to be.”

“I don’t.” Bruce kissed him again, leaning into him until they were pressed together from knees to shoulders.

“I was kind of hoping for something more… umm… bigger?” Tony managed to say between kisses. “Maybe… like… forever?”

Bruce chuckled, and pressed his forehead against Tony’s. “I could work with forever. But right now… I think we both need to get out of the lab.”


End file.
